


Small Comfort

by Ribby



Category: The Prestige
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-23
Updated: 2007-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 10:48:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ribby/pseuds/Ribby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His brother's presence is only small comfort, but comfort still.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Comfort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jou](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jou).



> Sparked, as usual, by [](http://jou.livejournal.com/profile)[**jou**](http://jou.livejournal.com/)'s wonderful drawing [Inconsolable](http://community.livejournal.com/prestige_slash/30637.html).

  
Curled around his brother's damaged form, Fallon cursed himself. _I should have known, I should have seen... this is all my fault._

"We need to get you to a doctor, Alfred. And fast." His brother nodded, teeth clenched to hold in the howls of pain.

Once the small theater cleared out, Fallon wrapped a cloth tightly around his brother's hand, hoping that would still the bleeding. There was a doctor he knew of who would treat Alfred well and wouldn't ask questions.

Half an hour later, Alfred was cauterized and bandaged, with a stern warning to not use that hand. Freddie wiped the pain-sweat from his brother's face, ignoring the moisture running down his own, and took him to the only place he knew his brother would be happy--Sarah.

She answered the door, the smile on her face transmuting to worry almost instantly. "What happened?"

 _Oh bloody *hell*_ , Fallon thought, _I can't tell her..._ but Alfred, as always, spoke for them both. "Bloody damn Angier--the bullet catch."

Sarah's face was horrified. "Oh no... I *told* you it was dangerous." She hustled Alfred into the house, clucking, Fallon thought, like a worried hen. Moments later, she was back at the door.

"Thank you, Mr. Fallon. Won't you come in?" He simply shook his head, and Sarah, long used to interpreting her husband's strange _ingenieur_ , smiled, bade him good day, thanked him again, and shut the door.

And Fallon, alone and with his brother's blood still on his hands, slowly made his way back to their silent workroom to grieve at his failure alone.

**********

He knew what had to happen, even as he railed against it. The Pact would accept no lesser sacrifice. But still he resisted, wanting to see Alfred's face, needing his brother's reassurance.

And if he were honest with himself, craving the few extra moments, hours, days that he could be whole, in body if not in mind.

Though it was restitution, in a way, for his failure. For failing to keep his brother safe, he would also lose what his failure had cost his brother.

But the thought was small comfort. And the comfort he desperately needed was absent.

**********

When Alfred finally found his brother, Freddie was sitting at his worktable, face in his hands, every line of his body screaming exhaustion and sorrow.

Cards were scattered everywhere, and rolling about them was the red rubber ball they'd had since childhood. It looked like Freddie had just.... given up. Alfred gasped at the sight of the last two fingers of his brother's left hand, bound cruelly to the hand itself.

No matter how he felt about his brother sometimes, Alfred could never stand to see him in pain. Silently, he unbound the fingers, massaging life and warmth back into them. Then he pulled up a second chair and wrapped his arms around his brother, who turned and curled into his warmth, still radiating pain.

"Freddie, what's wrong? Tell me... you can tell me."

A quiet sniffle, and then, "I'm so sorry--I should have *known* it was him, I should have seen... it's all my fault. And I'm a selfish bastard, I don't want to..." Freddie broke off and quietly cried, and all Alfred could do was rock his brother gently and feel the burn of hot tears through the cloth of his shirt.

When the last paroxysms of weeping had been staunched, and Freddie lifted his head to stare at his brother through red-rimmed swollen eyes, Albert kissed his forehead gently. "It's not your fault--I didn't recognize him until too late, and if you'd gotten involved, he might have shot you instead of my hand. And I can handle losing fingers--I couldn't losing you. But you know what we have to do."

Freddie grimaced. "Yes...but damn the Pact for it anyway." Realizing what he'd said, he glanced apprehensively at his brother, who smiled.

"Oh, I've said the same, don't worry... the thought of having to deliberately cause you pain makes me sick. But we don't have any choice."

"No, I don't suppose we do. But--one favor, Alfred?"

"Anything."

"Let me touch you, one more time, before. One last time with two whole hands; if it's to be the last, I want to remember it."

"Oh Freddie..." Alfred's eyes gleamed, and he pulled his brother's two whole hands to his lips and kissed them, then placed them on his shirtfront. "All yours, always."

"Always," echoed Freddie.

Afterwards, that was the memory he would cling to, of those moments with his brother, feeling warm skin under whole hands, and his brother's mutilated hand against his own skin. Mapping out every inch, every spot he knew for pleasure and some he discovered anew, as if he could press the memory of those touches into his hands, into his own body. The sense that once again, they were one soul in two bodies, that in joining physically they became one, for the brief time it lasted. Their connection, their devotion to each other seemed like the only thing in the world, each other as the center of their universe. Even when they parted, they stayed together, Freddie's hands folded over his brother's damaged ones, as if through sheer will he could replace what had been lost.

Amidst everything that came later--the arguments, the pain, the screaming--that one memory shone brightly, enough that he would wake at night, alone or cradled in Root's arms, weeping with the pain of loss. Not simply the loss of his hands, but of that connection with his brother. For 'always' had been and gone, and Alfred was no longer only his, nor was he Alfred's. And though he would have not wished it otherwise, he could not help but grieve.

He knew that that one moment, when the chisel came down and made them equal again, was the last moment that Alfred had been his only, his center. Now, there were others: Angier, Sarah, Root, Olivia--and he and Alfred would never be whole again.


End file.
